place; and I tell you, Desmond, had we done so before, there would have been a different story to tell this day. "Mr. Holwell saw ’twas impossible to withstand the Nawab’s hordes much longer, and spoke for an orderly retreat; but he was overrid by some of the military officers; and besides, retreat was cut off, for the ships that had lain in the river moved away, and though we hung out signals from the Fort asking ’em to come back and take us off, they paid no heed; nay, they stood further off, leaving us to our fate. What could we do? Mr. Holwell sent to Omichand in his prison and offered to release him if he would treat with the Nawab for us. But the Gentoo refused. All he would do was to write a letter to Manik Chand asking him to intercede for us. Mr. Holwell threw the letter over the wall among the enemy, and by heaven! Desmond, never did I suppose Englishmen would be reduced to such a point of humiliation. But ’twas of no effect. The enemy came on with the more determination, and brought bamboos to scale the walls. We drove ’em off again, but with frightful loss; twenty-five of our bravest men were killed outright and sixty wounded. ’Twas there I got my wounds, and ’twould have been all over with me but for that fine fellow Bulger; he turned aside with his hook a slashing blow from a scimitar and gave my assailant his quietus. Bulger fought like a hero, and the very look of him, black with powder and stained with blood, seemed to drive all the fight out of the Moors that came his way. "All this time the shots of the Nawab’s cannon annoyed us, not to much harm, for they were most villainously served; their fire-arrows did us more mischief, flying into the thick of the crowds of screaming women and children. It made my heart sick to think of the poor innocent people suffering through the weakness and incompetence and the guilty neglect of our Council. The heat and the glare, the want of food, the uproar and commotion--may I never see or hear the like again! "Yesterday there was a lull in the fighting about mid-day. The enemy were still outside the Fort, though they had possession of all the houses around. They showed a flag of truce, whereupon Mr. Holwell writ a letter asking ’em for terms. But ’twas a trick to deceive us. While we were resting, waiting the result of the parley, the Moors poured out of their hiding-places and swarmed upon the eastern gate of the Fort and the pallisadoes on the south-west. In the interval many of our common men had fallen asleep, some, alas! were drunk, so that we had no force to resist the invaders, who scaled the roof of the godowns on the north wall with the aid of their bamboos and swept over into the Fort.